Auditing

Several years ago while building a new relationship with an audit client, I mentioned that it would be ”fun to audit” Carnival’s cruise ship operations. She responded, ”Why, so you can catch them doing something wrong.” At this point, we had a candid conversation about her perception of internal auditing and what we really do. I explained that it is never our intention to “catch” someone doing something wrong. We are charged with evaluating processes to determine if risks have been identified and are appropriately managed via effective and efficient controls. Fortunately, this client was very open to learning about internal audit. We audited several of her areas with success. She would occasionally joke about our initial interaction by commenting that it would be “fun” to audit process a, b or c in our organization. Except her definition of “fun” was not really all that exciting. it was typically coworkers that were a pain in the but for her. Then one day she asked me, what was the

I recently interviewed for an Audit Committee position. As a walked into the room, one of the interviewers said that based on my resume, he expected someone older. He did not say this with malicious intent and I was not offended. It did, however, remind me of

A client recently asked me why or how did I choose internal auditing as a career. The question got me to thinking, why did I choose internal auditing as a profession? I mean really, who chooses to place him/herself in position where you are:

Constantly learning something new
Continuously interacting with various people across your organization
Helping improve your organizations products/services
I think I chose audit and

Recently, I wrote an article title My 3 Biggest Fears as Internal Auditor. Those fears were:

Missing Something Important
Finding Something Big
Not Making a Difference
There was a poll asking about your biggest audit fears. To date, almost 200 people have voted. A majority of you (66%) fear missing something big. Another 29% fear not making a difference (see poll below and fill it out if you have not). In addition to the poll, many of you sent emails expressing that you have the same fears. Further, some of you added to my 3 via email.

One email was…well…interesting. One person expressed a fear of failing to live up to best practice internal auditing standards. However, he indicated that he would never admit it

Internal auditing is a rewarding career. Stakeholders trust internal auditors to evaluate policies, processes and procedures to determine if organizations are adequately mitigating risks. This is a huge responsibility. When things are going well, clients often view auditors as the “traffic cop” or a “necessary evil”. However, one of the first questions asked when a control breakdown occurs is “Where were the auditors?” or “Why didn’t the auditors catch this?”. It is a double edged sword. Often practitioners are met

What is the difference between internal auditing and external auditing? This is a frequently asked question. Although the word “audit” in both are similar, there are distinct differences between the two job functions. Before directly answering the question, let’s take a look at which each is and/or does.

Both are what you would call